Envy: Okay, seriously Ace, you really need to stop thinking.
Ace: I'm just taking advantage of all my free-time before school starts. Once that happens, I should be able to escape the dreaded writer's block...
Ed: Hey, why does that thing up there say M instead of T?
Ace: I was playing it safe. You guys have to do a warning now in addition to the disclaimer.
Envy: I CALL DISCLAIMER!
Ed: Shit.
Envy: Ace5980 does not own FullMetal Alchemist.
Ace: Maybe I would if- no, wait, that's not right...
Ed: Warnings for this chapter include insinuation of rape, explicit cutting scene.
Ace: I'm so proud of you!
Ed: When do we get to the romance you always pull on us?
Envy: Yeah, I'm curious about that...
Ace: Uh... I DENY EVERYTHING! *runs away before they can question her further*
Chapter 1: The Lion and the Lamb
If there was one thing about his job that Edward hated, it was the feeling of being completely useless. After all, he had allowed Roy Mustang to talk him into keeping his status as Major Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist of the Military even though he'd been unable to perform alchemy for three years now. The blond sighed, scrawling yet another signature onto the yet another piece of paperwork he'd chosen to skim rather than read. The mundane life Ed currently lived ill-suited him, but without his alchemy, he'd lost much of his potency.
"NO! NO! I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE EMPTINESS!" The voice wasn't a familiar one, feminine and frantic, and it gave Ed pause as he processed what it had said. Curious, he got up from his desk and peeked out into the main hallway to see what all the commotion was about. What he saw shocked him more than anything he'd seen in his three peaceful years of monotony. There was a red-haired girl a few inches shorter than he was running down the corridor away from Kain Fuery with fear in her green eyes. Without thinking, he reached out and caught her by the arm, forcing emerald pools to meet golden ones. She froze, fingering the sleeve of his trademark coat. "The red and gold lion," she murmured quietly, "I know you, lion who has lost as much as I have."
Fuery's voice broke the spell over them both. "Looks like Lestari took a real liking to you, Edward, seeing as she let you touch her without permission or freaking out on you."
"What happened to her?" he demanded, fully aware of how she still clung to his sleeve.
"Their cousin, Ben Darke, escaped from prison last week despite the fact he's a high-profile prisoner and a dangerous alchemist to boot. One of Darke's old guards said he always asked about his younger twin sisters, so Mustang sent us to their house. By the time we arrived, Ben Darke was dead, Lestari was crying hysterically and sporting all the classic signs of having been raped, and the older twin Nitya was nowhere to be found." The Military man even seemed regretful when he added, "Ben was the last family she had other than Nitya, and in her current condition, she probably shouldn't be left alone, her being of legal age or not."
Remembering the conversation from when Fuery'd first brought in Black Hayate, Ed let out a sigh. His situation was the only one that had changed enough to allow for the support of another life, plus she was fond enough of him to justify it to a court marshal or a superior. Who knows, it might even prove beneficial to be living with someone else again now that Al was gone. "I'll take her."
"You sure, Ed? Her mental state's bound to be less than stellar right now."
"If Lestari can trust me enough to stay at my place, I don't mind putting her up." The males looked at the quiet girl, who merely blinked at them, her fingers tightening in the fabric of Ed's coat pointedly. "May I touch you?" he asked, his hand hesitating a short distance from her wrist. She nodded, slipping her fingers through his and following him as he walked out of Headquarters carrying a large stack of papers in his free arm as he briskly led them to the little apartment he called home there in Central.
The place was homey enough despite the papers and books scattered about haphazardly and its glaring lack of space. To her relief, the kitchen area and living room had their walls painted a light red and were almost barren of the dreaded colors of black and white. A slow smile spread across her face when she discovered the two bedrooms were painted a nice forest green and the small bathroom a baby blue. Someone would be by in the morning to drop off a box of her personal effects, so Ed generously let her borrow a shirt that was big on him for her to sleep in before he went to the living room to finish his paperwork and assured her to call for him or see him if she needed to.
The instant he left, the girl closed the door noiselessly and pulled out a small sharp knife no longer than her middle finger that she'd palm from her kitchen sink. She glared at her stomach darkly, pulling off her clothes and tossing them aside. There on the flat template of her stomach and pelvis, written there clear as day to her, were seven seven-pointed stars inside of one another inside a circle, all in the stark coloring of black and white. She repressed a shiver at the sight, unwanted memories threatening to flash before her eyes until she pushed them back ruthlessly. Raising the knife steadily in her hands, she slowly got down to the business of removing the damned colors from her skin.
Hands shaking slightly, she traced the outside of the circle in an outline of crimson using a series of short, slow strokes, the pain barely pricking her in her current state. Then, using a quick flick of the wrist each time, she slashed alone the lines of the stars, ignoring the blood welling up from each scratch she inflicted. Until now, she hadn't understood why Ben had taken so much pleasure in his daily ritual of cutting his transmutation circles into his palms, but now, watching her own lifeblood trickle slowly from her self-inflicted cuts as the surface tension slowly broke, she couldn't deny the dark beauty of taking a sharpened blade to one's own flesh. Sinfully curious now, the girl dipped her head down and licked up some of the crimson streaks on her stomach, pausing in her movements to close her eyes and savor the taste.
"Lestari!" Her head jerked up, her green eyes meeting Ed's golden one. He looked cute with the light blush on his cheeks, but she let out a little whine of protest when he took the knife from her and carried her into the bathroom, sitting her down on the edge of the tub. She fidgeted a little while he gently cleaned her off with a wet towel and carefully bandaged the cuts. "Crazy girl," he muttered, wrapping the bandages around her torso, "I come in to get you dinner and find you trying to kill yourself."
A surge of guilt washed through her. "I wasn't trying to kill myself."
"Sure looked like it to me."
She bit her lip, torn as to whether she should tell him or not. She compromised. "He called you a lion, but all I ever was to him was a dumb lamb with a pathetically naïve shepherd boy and a hungry wolf in the midst of my herd."
The blond paused momentarily in his wrapping, deciphering her extended metaphor as best he could, which wasn't much at all. "When you say 'he', you mean the person who raped you, right?" She nodded but made no move to continue elaborating, and he let the matter drop. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm ready and willing to listen if you want me to be."
She nodded, not wanting to talk about it any longer. The subject was just too painful for her right now. "What's for dinner?"
In the middle of the pair eating, the phone rang, startling Lestari enough to drop her spoon into her bowl of stew. Ed excused himself on the second ring, expecting it to be Mustang calling to scold him for stealing away a rape victim to a high-profile case. "Hello?"
Instead, he was pleasantly surprised. "Hey Brother!"
"Al! I thought you were supposed to be in Xing! What are you doing calling me?"
"I decided to come back for a visit. I haven't seen you in a while and thought it might be nice to catch up a little before I go see Granny and Winry."
"How soon are you coming?"
"Tomorrow morning by earliest, why?"
Ed briefly explained what he knew about Lestari and her recent episode with the extensive cutting. "I'm no doctor, but her wounds will definitely scar and likely become infected if someone doesn't look at them, but with her trust issues-"
"Fine, I'll take a look at, but this is only gonna end in trouble for you, Nii-san."
"When doesn't it?"
Envy: I do not understand Ace.
Ed: I don't think it's physically possible to understand her.
Ace: Thanks for that confidence builder, guys!
Lestari: *sweatdrops* Did she just thank you two for failing to understand her?
Envy: Yep. It's normal for her, actually.
Ed: You'll get used to it.
Lestari: Oh dear. By the way, why is this story called Eternal?
Ace: Because your name, Lestari, and Nitya mean 'eternal' in Indonesian and Indian, respectively.
Lestari: Oh. Okay then!
Envy: Blah blah blah, review or I'll murder you.
Ed: Blah blah blah, do it 'cuz otherwise we'll never know what the hell happens to us.
Lestari: I don't get this at all.
Ace: Basically, you give people reason to press that button down there and tell me what they thought about this.
Lestari: Why don't you just ask Envy and Ed?
Ace: Because Envy's not nice about it since he sees it as an opportunity to crush my hopes and dreams and Ed choses not to read these things anymore because he says they normally depress him.
Lestari: Oh. Review because it makes Ace feel better!
Ace: Erm, I'll just offer virtual roller coaster rides as a reward instead...